The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects or “things” embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The IoT allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration between the physical world and computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure.
Despite the benefits that IoT devices may provide, their large size and poor battery life currently makes them unsuitable for practical use. Energy harvesting is an attractive solution for extending the battery life in IoT applications. Moreover, power delivery and generation for multiple voltage rails can be a bottleneck in terms of form factor (e.g., by occupying a large portion of an overall printed circuit board footprint) and cost. However, traditional energy harvesting architectures comprises two stages of DC-DC converters, which results in low overall efficiency, large form factor and cost.